Which would you prefer? A daily shower or a ChatGPT prompt? This choice may no longer be theoretical for millions of Californians facing water restrictions (Majority or US’s new AI data centers to be built on drought hit land | Guardian 8/6/26 ) and may soon be the reality for all of us, as the AI bubble expands. Just one data centre can use up to 50 million gallons of water a day, the equivalent water use of 50,000 people. With almost 12,000 data centres globally operational, with thousands more planned by big tech, is it not time to question, how much are we willing to sacrifice for AI?
Just how much water does AI use?
On any given day ChatGPT’s 550 million users can submit over two billion prompts using roughly a cubic kilometre of water or the contents of Loch Morar, the deepest body of freshwater in the UK. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. AI systems are so embedded in our digital world that it is hard to avoid them. Indeed, while writing and researching this article I was continually offered AI ‘help’ by my search engine and my word processor. Help I’d never asked for; help I can’t seem to turn off. On average a AI generated internet search burns up to fifteen times more CO2 than a standard google search. In 2025 alone generative AI systems emitted a estimated 50 million metric tonnes of CO2, almost double that of London in the same year. Over the next decade the industry is set to expand exponentially with the endorsement and funding of our government.
What do we get?
So, what do we get? What do we get for the gallons of clean, drinkable water poured through greedy overheated servers. For the millions of tonnes of carbon heating our atmosphere and acidifying our seas. For the millions more, dollars and pounds of government funding pouring into AI, to train larger and more complex models, that need more and more data, power and water. The tech bros would argue we are on the brink of a Utopian future but the reality is a dystopian nightmare. Across social media AI images and filters entrench body dysphoria in our young women (and men). Art, music and literature, the very things that make us human, that link us, are replaced with dull uninspired slop. We’re letting machines plagiarise us, and paying for the privilege.
AI is not inevitable
Across tech industries the narrative of the inevitability of AI is constantly pushed. Of course it is, it’s making them a lot of money. Sam Altman, the CEO of openAI who own ChatGPT is the newest billionaire, with a personal fortune close to two-billion and his own supersonic plane. So naturally, these companies lobby governments hard. In the last two years google alone had over 100 ministerial meetings. Together big tech was meeting with ministers every day. They offer money, they offer jobs and above all else they offer easy solutions. The NHS is underfunded so why not hand your data to big tech? Except that is no longer your data, its’s there’s and they’ll use it to build digital walls designed to keep you from actual human health providers, because they cost money.
How do we stop the wave before we all drown? If our governments won’t protect us, we must take the power back from tech ourselves. Delete that AI app, resist the convenience, write, create, think without a screen. Because if we don’t, in the future we may all be truly thirsting with nothing left to drink.
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